Dark Magic (+ a little Marietta)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 176796

prep0sterous:
> Since I'm hovering near the topic... Marietta.  Is it primary canon
> that the scars remain, or is that JKR in an interview?

Magpie:
In canon we get that the pustules are still there at the end of OotP 
and at the beginning of HBP (she's covered up). So JKR does make a 
point of saying a book later that it's still going on. To me that 
indicated that yes, I should assume it's still there unless I hear 
otherwise. I thought I would hear about them going away or that 
something would be done in DH (I assumed that's why it was put in 
again, so that I'd worry about it). That's why it was valid to ask if 
they *ever* faded away, and JKR said it left scars forever, which 
does go along with canon in that last we're told they're still there. 
Remember Dudley needed his tail removed surgically.

prep0sterous:

> And let's not pretend she didn't deserve it.  She may not be 100%
> certain Voldemorte is back, but she knows what Umbridge is like.  
I'm
> sure by that time more than enough students have come back with
> bleeding hands, and seen how worthless their DADA courses were to
> understand how she was... and what was in store for the students she
> was telling on.  Cho included.  They weren't going to get detention
> cleaning for Filch.  It was going to be BAD.

Magpie:
Well, I don't have to pretend she didn't deserve it because I don't 
think she did--and apparently neither do you since you've lessened 
the punishment in your mind to make it lighter. For me it's kind of a 
side issue that there's no reason to think she saw anybody with 
bleeding hands (in itself *still* less horrible a punishment than 
Marietta gets), adn that worthless DADA classes hardly qualifies 
permenant disfigurement to me. If JKR really expected me to think she 
deserved *this* never-ending punishment because I was supposed to 
imagine something BAD happening (even though actually nothing 
happened to the DA) then she failed. I was okay with the curse at the 
time (though annoyed that it seemed to be presented as Hermione being 
*smart* when Hermione had actually been anything but!).

So it doesn't surprise me that your thinking the punishment was fair 
went along with your thinking there was no permenant scarring, while 
the whole reason I thought the punishment was too much was because it 
seemed clear it *was* permenant. We both would have been okay with 
Marietta marked temporarily. (Even though I'm also annoyed with the 
usual lack of lesson for Gryffindors--Hermione should have gotten a 
smack down for her own stupidity and carelessness as well, and 
instead she seems cheered on by everyone with no one questioning her 
own glaring mistakes. This was no triumph for Hermione.) 

prep0sterous:
> 
> But, to get back to the curse... a powerful, long standing, 
difficult
> to treat curse... fine.   But actual lasting scars?  So few things
> cause lasting scars in this series.  Harry can lose all the bones in
> his body - people get broken, sliced up in every way, and are 
healed.
>  Hermione mucks up the polyjuice potion and takes forever to heal, 
but
> recovers as well.  The offhanded way JKR can say Marietta doesn't
> recover from the scarring seems unnecessarily severe  - yeah, maybe
> it's funny to her because Marietta is a traitor, but it's really way
> more problematic in the sense that Hermione would be participating 
in
> magic that could have that much of a permanent impact - which is
> something i HAD associated with dark magic.

Magpie:
Yeah, exactly--that's how I feel. Unnecessarily severe because it's 
pleasantly sadistic. Marietta and the Longbottoms. In order to make 
it anything other than that, imo, you not only have to pretend JKR 
didn't say that but that she didn't also in canon tell us the curse 
was permenant by dragging it into the following book so Harry could 
get pleasure out of it again. Once that happened the author would, 
imo, have to tell us that it went away, and she didn't--which is why 
she was asked, and why she responded that no, whenever it did finally 
go away, it left permenant scarring. I was wrong in thinking 
Marietta's pustules were still there because it was going somewhere, 
but I was right in guessing the level of cruelty the author intended. 
She loathes traitors!

-m